http://dhamma.t3x.org/fellowship.html
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Human beings gather in order to experience mutual perception and recognition and a feeling of belonging. This can only work if the relationships inside of a collective are based upon principles like attentiveness, compassion, harmlessness, and loyalty.
People in a functioning collective listen to each other, use speech in order to transmit valuable information and encourage each other, attempt to comprehend each other, and extend a friendly and helpful attitude toward each other.
In these days, though, gatherings mostly serve to entertain. Time spent together is time wasted by story-telling, joking, and agitating each other in manifold ways. Culture values this kind of engagement, but in the end, it leaves its participants unsatisfied and feeling empty. There is no sense of connection between those involved; their only purpose is mutual entertainment, which is ultimately a form of delusion.
This becomes particularly visible when one part of the relationship is no longer able or willing to deliver the expected contribution. Like a broken TV, an individual that no longer provides the expected value is swiftly disposed of.
Fellowship, as it is lived in today's culture, it no longer a remedy for loneliness, it is its primary cause.